Reflection for Sunday, April 14, 2024

This Wednesday marks the feast day of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. Here in Wiikwemkoong, we will celebrate with a Mass at 5:00 followed by a potluck dinner.

Kateri has been called the “Lily of the Mohawks”. Where does that title come from? In a book by Darren Bonaparte of Akwesasne, the author recounts how a Mohawk elder had told him that, after the death of Kateri, lilies sprouted from her grave – and so the title “Lily of the Mohawks”.

Bonaparte’s book is titled A Lily Among Thorns: The Mohawk Repatriation of Kateri Tekahkwi:tha. We find in the title of this book, then, another possible name for Kateri: a “lily among thorns”. When he used this phrase, Bonaparte was quoting Fr. Claude Chauchetière SJ, one of the early biographers of Kateri. Chauchetière wrote, in his story about Kateri: “I have up to the present written of Katherine as a lily among thorns, but now I shall relate how God transplanted this beautiful lily . . .”

Now, Bonaparte takes issue with the title “a lily among thorns” for Kateri. Fr. Chauchetière was suggesting that the “thorns” were Kateri’s own people, including her own family. Bonaparte questions the narrative, found in the early Jesuit biographies, which suggests that she was a good and great person in spite of her own people, her culture, her upbringing.

Based on what I know of Kateri’s life story, it seems clear that her Christian faith was an important, impactful part of her life. However, Bonaparte makes a good point in stating that her character, her goodness, her saintliness, surely would have also been formed by her culture, her family, her people – including those who were not Christians.

– Fr. Paul Robson SJ

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